Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Building with explosives

Their main interest is to have the currently non-explosive bits of bullets and shells - like the metal casings - do some work instead of littering the ground when fired. But I think this technology could see other uses.

DARPA's solicitation says they need to be capable of withstanding high stresses, and also be able to be "controllably stimulated to produce substantial blast energy."

Such materials will likely start off as extremely expensive, but imagine the fun you could have building big stuff with it. Need to demolish that bridge or building? No problem, parts of its structure are actually explosive, given the right stimulus. Of course, making sure that doesn't happen accidentally, say in an electric storm, could be difficult.